‘It’ll be a rocket,’ said someone. ‘The railway bridge’ll be out.’

There was another pulse of bodies, and Vee was thrust forward, pinned by her shoulders, her feet dabbing at the ground, and she reached out a panicked hand and knocked off a man’s hat. He twisted round, instantly furious, the hat already unreachable as it sifted down between the elbows.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘That was a three-guinea job, you clumsy cow.’ He was shaped like a petrol pump, with a small round head on wide shoulders, and his hair was slicked to the scalp as if painted on.

‘I said I was sorry.’

The crowd swayed forward again, carrying Vee beyond him, and closer to Mario, who was talking over the barriers to a porter. He looked round and caught her eye.

‘Guy says there’s a rocket on a place called Battersby.’

‘Battersea, I expect. That’s where all the lines from Victoria run.’

‘PUSH ALL YOU LIKE,’ said the announcer. ‘HITLER’S CANCELLED THE TRAINS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, SO ALL COMPLAINTS SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO BERLIN.’

There was a groan of protest, and then a lessening of crowd pressure as people began to move away.

‘But how are we going to get back?’ asked Vee.

‘Itch,’ said the Tommy, who’d appeared beside her once again.

‘Itch?’

He stuck out a thumb in illustration. ‘Mind you, they don’t like stopping in the rain. You might have to show them a bit of knee, know what I mean? Want to travel with me?’

‘No.’

He winked. ‘You’re probably right. You’ll get further on your own.’

‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘Stop talking to me like that,’ and she was astonished to hear a firmness in her voice, a sharp finality that made him draw back, as if slapped; before she’d become respectable Mrs Overs she’d had years and years of men like Tommy Tooth-Stubs treating her like a tart because she didn’t have any money or a visible husband, or maybe it was because of the way she looked or how she talked (she’d never known the exact reason – it was as if someone had daubed something indelible on her back), but she remembered how it had sometimes seemed less of an effort to simply go along with their assumptions rather than yet again having to hear the climbing complaint of her own voice. And yet here she was now, sounding like Edith Evans.

‘Keep your corsets on,’ muttered the Tommy, but he looked as if he’d just bitten into a crab sandwich and cracked his tooth on a piece of shell.

Vee turned away, searching for Mario, and found herself instead staring at an object held in front of her. It had once been pearl-grey felt with a maroon silk ribbon, and now looked like something fished out of a blocked drain.

‘Three guineas,’ said the man with the round head. ‘You owe me.’

‘It was an accident.’

‘Three guineas,’ he repeated, pushing his face towards hers, and she took a step back and stumbled over someone’s foot, turning her ankle and falling sideways, her out-flung hand desperately grabbing on to something that turned out to be Hat Man’s tie.